Oath wouldn’t require Americans to drop citizenship

ByGIL STERN STERN SHEFLER

October 21, 2010 06:02

Many American-Israelis worried that pledge of allegiance to Israel would jeopardize US status.

us flag 88.
(photo credit:Courtesy)

The US Embassy in Israel said Wednesday that proposed legislation being
discussed by the government, which would require would-be Israeli citizens to
pledge allegiance to Israel as a Jewish and democratic state, would not have any
bearing on their American citizenship.

“I don’t think there’s anything
that impacts on [US] citizenship in this proposed law,” the embassy spokesperson
said. “Unless I hear something about this because it’s new, I don’t think
anything’s going to change.”

The spokesperson was responding to phone
calls from American- Israelis worried that their legal status as US citizens
might be in jeopardy if they swear allegiance to Israel. Some of their concern
may have been sparked by wording in the US Oath of Allegiance, taken by new
would-be citizens, which requires them to “absolutely and entirely renounce and
abjure all allegiance and fidelity to any foreign prince, potentate, state, or
sovereignty of whom or which I have heretofore been a subject or
citizen...”

But the spokesperson said they had nothing to worry
about.

“US citizenship, in general, in order for it to be lost, something
fairly strong has to happen like renunciation,” he explained. “So it’s really
hard to accidentally lose American citizenship, with the exception of treason or
working for a foreign government and those sorts of things. For example, Michael
Oren had to renounce his American citizenship when he became Israel’s ambassador
to Washington.”